In this essay the author traces her theological development from encountering Scripture in church as a child to a vocation in systematic theology to a later discovery of biblical studies. Donald H. Juel's work Messianic Exegesis is discussed at length, both for its insightful analysis of the pre-canonical apostolic exegesis of the Scriptures of Israel to account for the crucifixion and resurrection of God’s Messiah, and for its implications for doctrinal theology accountable to Scripture as its normative standard. The author advances the thesis that theological work is principally exegeting the crucified and risen Jesus according to the Old Testament, with the New Testament writings serving as normative exemplars of just such an exegetical strategy. This also points toward the need for ongoing self-correction in the Christian theological tradition and a standard by which to judge proposed corrections.

ABSTRACT As a method of textual analysis, rhetorical criticism is performed by biblical studies scholars and communication studies scholars alike. The goals and processes of rhetorical criticism in biblical and communication studies differ, but both are called rhetorical criticism. In this essay, I illustrate the value of applying a broader range of rhetorical perspectives to the task of rhetorical criticism of the Bible with a case study of the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10:1–11:18 from a queer rhetorical lens. I call for rhetorical scholars to engage in more rhetorical criticism of biblical texts, especially in ways that speak to contemporary political uses of scripture.

Tamar’s narrative in Genesis 38:15-24 is often read within a traditional moral framework that emphasizes piety or sexual transgression. Traditional moral frameworks emphasize piety or sexual transgression, but such approaches often mask the power imbalances that shape the story. This article applies the hermeneutics of suspicion, a critical approach that suspects ideological structures in texts, to reread the story of Tamar in a subversive and liberating way. By interrogating constructions of gender, power, and the body in the text, the article reveals how the narrative reinforces patriarchal structures while concealing women’s agency. Tamar’s act of disguising herself as a prostitute is understood not as a form of immorality but as a political strategy to demand genealogical justice and her rights as a woman in a patriarchal society. Combining feminist theory, sexuality critique, and postcolonial approaches, this article reads Tamar’s body as a political and theological space that challenges the boundaries set by male authorities, especially the figure of Judah. It also explores how the text creates a visual duality between Judah’s perception and Tamar’s performative identity, exposing mechanisms of both oppression and resistance. This article offers a new contribution to feminist biblical studies by placing women’s marginalized voices and bodies at the center of interpretation and locus of theology. Finally, this article invites faith and academic communities to revisit biblical narratives that have been considered normative and replace them with interpretations that favor gender justice and humanity.

This article explores masculinities studies as a sub-field of gender studies. Both emerged in the 1990s, alongside and cross-fertilised by queer studies. Both draw on feminist criticism and frequently examine violence. Within Hebrew Bible studies, diverse explorations of masculinities by now span most of the literature. Select key examples are summarised here. Just as feminist criticism drew attention to the diversity of female experience, as well as to gender-based violence perpetrated against women, so the study of masculinities has illuminated diverse male experiences in biblical texts, while also challenging gender binarism. Divine hypermasculinity and the hegemonic masculinity of David are prominent in early investigations of biblical masculinity. The field is by now considerably more diverse but also contested.

The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 marked a watershed moment for teaching in the humanities, as Large Language Models (LLMs) suddenly demonstrated text generation capabilities indistinguishable from human writing. Using biblical studies as a case study, this paper examines how these tools challenge core pedagogical practices across text-based disciplines. The article offers a look into the ‘black box’ of LLMs through hands-on demonstrations with OpenAI’s playground, revealing their nature as probabilistic systems where the next word is selected from weighted possibilities rather than retrieved deterministically. Understanding this proves crucial for students and educators, explaining phenomena like ‘hallucinations’ and exposing why treating LLMs as citable sources fundamentally misunderstands what they are. Having established how LLMs function, the article examines three areas where these tools challenge traditional teaching in biblical scholarship – and by extension, the humanities: increasingly sophisticated AI translations question the value of intensive language training; LLMs that process entire books in seconds make existing reading practices appear inefficient; and AI-generated content increasingly rivals scholarly writing. Rather than dismissing LLMs as “stochastic parrots” or embracing them uncritically, the article proposes a balanced response preserving essential practices – particularly slow reading and writing as critical thinking tools – while leveraging LLMs as dialogue partners and research assistants. The humanities’ future vitality depends on articulating why human engagement with texts remains irreplaceable, even as these tools are integrated into educational frameworks. Biblical studies thus offers a compelling test case for how humanities disciplines must reimagine their teaching – not through isolated policy adjustments but through fundamental reconsideration of core competencies in an AItransformed landscape.

This article advocates for rethinking how biblical texts are studied, emphasizing the need for a more inclusive and transformative approach. It critiques traditional, often white and Eurocentric methods of biblical interpretation, arguing that they perpetuate biases and marginalize non-Western perspectives; and it presents the need for a decolonized approach that includes diverse viewpoints. This involves recognizing and addressing the biases inherent in classical methods, such as historical criticism, which often ignore or obscure ethical issues and contemporary contexts. In turn, this paper advocates for a hermeneutic of listening and dialogue, particularly with African-American scholars like Mitzi Smith, who offer critical insights into how biblical texts reflect and impact marginalized communities. Smith’s interpretation of Rachel’s weeping in Matthew 2 is used to illustrate how biblical texts can resonate with contemporary issues of racial and social injustice. She links Rachel’s lament to the systemic violence faced by African-American communities, contrasting it with traditional interpretations that focus on historical or theological aspects. This article argues that engaging with diverse interpretive perspectives not only enriches biblical studies but also enhances its relevance and ethical impact, urging scholars to consider the transformative potential of biblical texts in addressing modern social justice issues.

Since the early twentieth century, historical accounts of belief in the devil have tended to see the period from the Enlightenment onwards as the nadir of belief in a personified devil, particularly in secularising Europe. While this is demonstrably the case in some regards, more recent scholarship has complicated this picture, and this is particularly salient with reference to sectors of the Roman Catholic Church. This article examines the specific case of the survival of Roman Catholic demonology in the period from the late nineteenth century through to the eve of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). By surveying a series of discursive fields usually treated separately, this article highlights that far from being abandoned, demonological discourse remained a feature of various sectors of the Church during the period between around 1850 through to 1960 and can be evidenced in a variety of intellectual domains ranging from the developing discipline of Biblical Studies to the historiography of witchcraft and touching on areas extending from the Roman Catholic response to Spiritualism through to the modernist controversy and popular literature.

Proverbs 17:2 contains many transformative pedagogical and ethical values because it contrasts the life of a wise slave with that of a shameful child. Previous research has often overlooked the richness of the narrative structure of this passage, which illustrates how wisdom and moral values emerge as a pedagogical implementation of the slave's decision, transforming his future. The purpose of this study is to explore the pedagogical and ethical values that emerge in the narrative of Proverbs 17:2 as a lesson for young people about the choices they make. Using a hermeneutic method of subgenre wisdom literature, three important values were found in this verse: first, living wisely; second, living morally; and third, living with hope. This study highlights how the implementation of pedagogy can transform one's life, providing hope for the future. Additionally, this study contributes to the development of biblical studies, particularly in exploring books of wisdom literature.

This study explores the materiality of speech in ancient Hebrew instruction through the lens of Solomon’s legendary excess in the biblical tradition. Solomon’s excessive wealth and wisdom (1 Kgs 5:12, 10:23–25) suggest that his wise words were conceptualized as tangible, numerable speech-objects. Drawing on the language of instruction in Proverbs, which describes words as treasures to be stored, transmitted, and worn as protective amulets, the essay demonstrates an ontology where speech has its own agency and material effects on the body. Ultimately, inscribed text functions as a technology of this material speech, not as an ephemeral record but as an active repository that re-embodies the speaking voice, offering an “epistemological turn” in biblical studies that challenges anachronistic Cartesian dualisms.

ABSTRACT This article examines how Salatiel Ailonga and other Namibians affiliated with the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) read the Bible in 1960s and early 1970s Tanzania. The text first presents the circumstances in which Ailonga and other Namibians joined SWAPO in exile in Tanzania during the early 1960s. It then turns to a Bible study that Ailonga and other SWAPO leaders attended in Dar es Salaam with the American Lutheran missionary Lloyd Swantz and the significance of that space in shaping Ailonga’s later engagement with scripture and SWAPO. Finally, the article considers Ailonga’s selection to attend Makumira Theological Seminary and the theological views that he expressed during and immediately after his studies there (1968–1973). As I argue, while reading the Bible in Tanzania, Ailonga articulated a prophetic Christianity focused on how ‘the world of Christ’ must orient itself to prepare humanity for a postcolonial, post-apartheid future. In so doing, he not only echoed liberation theologies formulated elsewhere at this time but also problematised expressions of these ideas that did not transcend nationalism through devotion to Christ. Through Ailonga’s Bible, the article further suggests what is at stake in taking the personal religious convictions of liberation movement members seriously.

Abstract Dis/ability Studies have found their way into Bible Studies in recent years. In particular, the cultural model of Dis/ability has proven to be instrumental in the analysis of biblical texts. After giving an overview over the most relevant terms, this paper considers the metaphorical uses as well as selected theological implications of dis/abilities within the Old and New Testament. Finally, it stresses the relevance of dis/ability hermeneutics both for an open dialogue between dis/ability in modernity and in biblical (con-)texts.

Although Asian American biblical interpretation has begun to firmly establish itself within academic biblical studies, Filipino American biblical interpretation remains underrepresented and virtually invisible within biblical studies in general and within Asian American biblical interpretation specifically. Filipino American biblical interpretation is developing in conversation with the traditions of Filipino biblical interpretation and theology but must reshape those traditions in the context of the US diaspora, while simultaneously developing its own traditions and drawing upon its own history, ethnography, and resources. This article reviews recent developments in both Filipino and Filipino American academic biblical studies, while also envisioning a path forward for Filipino American biblical interpretation. A brief application of some of the traditions of Filipino American biblical interpretation to 1 Cor 1:18–31 allows for these traditions to be illustrated rather than merely described.

The Philippines has become one of the nations with the highest number of active daily users of social media in the world. From Facebook to TikTok, watching and making videos and clips through the cellphone is an irrefutable phenomenon that permeated various sectors of the Philippines. Amplified by the pandemic, this phenomenon manifested as well in redefining academic/religious publishing. Virtual grassroots religious communities are creating and publishing their worship service, Bible study, academic conference, daily devotion, and other religious and academic contents via the social media. Their work has created new rhizomatic connections whereby the lived realities of the mass and their instantaneous capacity to respond and co-create academic/religious contents have become an irrefutable re-emergence and reconfiguration of what is called ‘publishing’. By doing so, the rhizomatic connections that emerged out of these publishing networks have elevated and made more visible the presence, voices, and concerns of those who were previously deemed unworthy of being published.

Alan Millard epitomized the rounded, 'holistic' scholar, bringing together expertise in Semitic languages, archaeology, biblical studies, and a deep desire to communicate the fruits of his research to as broad a public as possible, and never allowing himself to become a narrow specialist.Alan was born in Harrow, Middlesex on 1

This article explores the meaning of Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6:33 from a systematic-theological perspective to gauge its implications for Christian moral agency in contemporary South Africa. The research question is: ‘What is the moral relevance of seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness in South Africa today – a society plagued by economic inequality, moral decay, corruption, and pockets of hedonism?’ This question gives rise to the following sub-questions: Does Jesus teach us to withdraw from social challenges into an above-worldly sphere of pietism, seeking only a consoling spiritual relationship with God? Is the righteousness of the kingdom purely spiritual? Does it carry social implications? Can these implications be translated into social – even radical – social actions? How should Matthew 6:33 be understood and preached in present-day South Africa. The central-theoretical argument of the article is twofold: (1) the righteousness of the kingdom entails a sound relationship with God in Christ, which renews all other relationships of Christian believers; and (2) it requires their potent involvement in social justice. This research question and sub-questions will not be approached primarily from a biblical grammatical-historical perspective but rather from a systematic-theological perspective, with reference to biblical studies. Contribution: Firstly, this appraisal revisits the concept of the kingdom of God and then focuses on the idea of God’s righteousness and its social relevance, Christian moral agency, and an ecclesiology of justice. In conclusion, the discussion offers reflections on the relevance of Matthew 6:33 in the South African context today.

The paper concentrates on the circumstances of the genesis of the Czech Ecumenical Translation of the Bible (1961–1979). It presents the preparation and finalization of the project which can be labelled as unique in relation to the former Eastern Bloc countries and remarkable with respect to the church and religious history of the Czech Lands. The text consists of six contexts – the first one concerns global church history, whereas the remaining five contexts concern various aspects of Czech church history. 1) Global church history offers an insight into the paradigmatic shift of the Second Vatican Council in relation to Bible studies and ecumenism. 2) The second context describes the readiness of the non-Catholic and Catholic milieu for a new translation into the national language. 3) Subsequently, the process of the translation is briefly introduced as well as the non-implementation of this translation in the Roman Catholic Church with respect to liturgy. 4) The paper then shows contemporary pillars (i.e. at the time) of the communist church policy and the matter of the ecumenical relations between the Czech Christians. 5) Within an analysis, a paradoxical situation is shown when ecumenical activity was not systematically suppressed by the state; reasons for such an approach are considered. 6) The paper addresses a positive perception of the translation in the contemporary and later reception and in the church collective memory.

It has been a century since the birth of philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-95). At his friend’s expense, Michel Foucault once joked, saying that un jour ce siecle sera peut-etre deleuzien: “perhaps one day this century will be known as Deleuzian?” Is there truth to the notion that the present moment expresses something of a “Deleuzian aeon” for the humanities, and what are its ramifications for biblical studies? In this article, a leading voice of theory in exegesis, Stephen D. Moore and The Bible after Deleuze: Affects, Assemblages, Bodies without Organs functions as a screen for issues afflicting “high theory” and theorists of continental philosophy. Through a careful review of Bible after Deleuze and its main contributions, Moore’s study addresses the broad difficulties of combining certain aspects of theory with exegesis in Scandinavia, I argue. Specifically, Bible after Deleuze is interesting in the symptomatic role of theory to replace questions of “theology” in relation to the critical study of the Bible. With this in mind, I ask “What challenges can be found to underlie the task of implementing high theory to a methodologically driven discipline, such as biblical studies?” In the end, Bible after Deleuze is to be applauded for its actualization of contemporary continental philosophy for biblical studies. Acting as a secularizing force in biblical studies however, Bible after Deleuze also diagnoses a tendency of “theory” to replace the historical connection of exegesis and theology.

Abstract Digital approaches to biblical studies have increased in number and significance over the last 20 years. In order to gauge the large spectrum of methodologies, research questions, and research objects, this essay showcases a range of projects that have been included in two volumes of the series Digital Biblical Studies . Using them as a stepping stone, the introductory and concluding remarks seek to map digital biblical studies within the broader field of biblical studies, to reveal common trends, and to offer suggestions for the future interaction of Digital Humanities and biblical studies.

ABSTRACT Across many secular American research universities, biblical studies is taught largely from an historical–critical perspective. This article traces this approach back to some very specific stipulations for the study of the Bible made by Benjamin Franklin when he founded the University of Pennsylvania in the 18th century. It briefly shows how these stipulations delayed the start of secular biblical studies in the United States until the mid to late 19th century, shaped the limited approaches that were deemed acceptable, and influenced generations of scholars across major universities for the next several generations. The article concludes by reflecting on the effects of this legacy today in the author's own teaching practices.

La culminación de los estudios bíblicos de Nebrija es el opúsculo titulado Tertia quinquagena (1516), una colección de cincuenta anotaciones críticas al texto latino de la Biblia. El título hace referencia a que su autor intentó llevar la obra a las prensas en dos ocasiones previas, ambas frustradas por diversos motivos. Conocemos, no obstante, el índice de esa cincuentena de anotaciones de lo que fue la Secunda quinquagena, dado a conocer en 1507, en una relación que no coincide enteramente con lo publicado en 1516. Este trabajo se centra en los siete lemas de 1507 que no formaron parte de la edición definitiva de la Tertia. Con apoyo en el resto de la opera nebrisense y en otros instrumentos, como la Biblia Políglota de Cisneros, trata de ofrecerse una tentativa de reconstrucción de esas anotaciones perdidas.